Five uncommon OHV's of the 50s

I believe you are getting your engines mixed up. 221 was a small block Ford, born in 1962, which grew to 260 to 289, 302.

What you are thinking of is a 215 all aluminum BOP engine, used from 61-63. It was later sold to Rover for their cars.

215 and 221 engines are 1960 vintage engines, thought the thread was about OHV 50's engines. Funny how odd ball inline 6 and 8's were not mentioned.

 

Yep, 215. Sorry 'bout that but my excuse is that I am old!

 

...two of the sexiest for me...

1955 or '56 Dodge/Plymouth (real) 241 Poly:


1956/'57 Lincoln 368 cu in

 

Thread title doesn't say V8... So how about the Willys F head 4 and 6 cylinder . Overhead intakes,side valve exhaust,with huge 2 inch intake valves for a 134 cube 70 HP 4 cylinder engine.

 

The 1957 Rambassador AMC Y block you mentioned is probably the best of the offbrands. Except for the exhaust side head porting there is almost nothing wrong with it. Way lighter than the Packard, cast in high chrome iron by Studebaker, all forged internals except for the pistons. Similar bottom end architecture to the Nailhead, almost a mirror image with the same dimensions. Something akin to priority oiling. Left stagger, right starter, short bellhousing extension with circular boltface that many decent transmissions mount up to on account of Wagoneer installations. But for the less than exciting brand name and the schoolmarm cars it powered these would have had much more acceptance and aftermarket support that would have provided a good replacement head and aftermarket manifolds. I frankly think it is a better engine than the later AMC that had a crappy oiling system Achilles heel but was otherwise contemporary.

 

The Stude is indeed overlooked for reasons of excess weight, insufficient bore and valve size, crappy porting constricted by EIGHTEEN ill positioned headbolts per side. There is no reason why this engine was not obsoleted by 1957, even though it had good metallurgical work and precise quality control. Next to no demand existed for a proper cylinder head until the unobtainable R3 kind was attempted in the year of its overdue demise (1964). Had it received any development it would have maxxed out at 400 inches where it would still have been only as good as the 374 Packard, albeit with a forged crank.

 

The small MoPars, the 241/270 Red Ram and the single rockershaft "PlyFire" had marginal bottom ends, not stout like the eventual 318 A-block which was analogous to marrying the big Firepower Hemi bottom end to a single rockershaft head, or said differently, their Spitfire put on Slimfast.

 

The Poncho 370 was a pretty stout engine and possessed of reverse "gusher" cooling for heavy duty truck use. In that size it had pretty good rod to stroke ratio for high rpm, and aside from the aforesaid cooling passages the heads of those Indians were generally swappable. The change in chamber wedge angle does not pose a serious issue if recognized by the choice of piston eyebrows. Their starter is on the wrong side, but it made sense as the bore stagger was the mirror image of an SBC and the oil gallery to the filter in the opposite side was no detriment to a decent bore.

 

The Lincoln Y block was a deepskirt copy of the Kettering Olds, and shared the unfortunate extended bellhousing to fit the original GM Hydramatic. All this excess block material made it quite as heavy as the FirePower Hemi without the deep breathing ability. Not to forget that Fords have always had deep front pan sumps that were unhelpful for swapping.

 

Nobody has ever mentioned GM suing Studebaker over engine similarities, features of which were not patented, and dimensions which are not patentable. More likely is that the General was the source of the Stude engine's initial design, and the tooling order to Cross and Trecker or F. Jos. Lamb that Studebaker built them on was probably initiated by GM. It was wisely recognized by Ed Cole that a more clever engine for the 55 Chevy would be needed than merely a shrunken but costly Kettering, and that is likely how the Stude came into existence, as the discarded predecessor idea.

 

You would hardly find one anyplace, but the English Daimler Majestic V8 was a more weight efficient (yet stouter) version of the Red Ram 270 that came into existence in the late fifties. It had aluminum heads. I regard it as truly the best V8 of that decade, remembering that the SBC was never produced larger than 283 cubes in that decade and which was really pretty crappy until you replaced all its cast internals and cheesy valvestuds.

 

Join me on my FB blog "looking back racing" if you are not hung up on just the lead sled cruising scene for the Sonic drive ins on Wednesdays. We need people with period V8s to keep the attendance up and varied at the vintage sports car scene. You would need to put some kind of Devin, Byers, or Ambro fiberglass shell (and decent brakes) on your rod to get onto the track, but that is not an impossible find. I have tons of images to upload if there is any call for specifics.

 

Why not the slightly later Hemi Willys Tornado 230 six? Follow that one to Brazil where it got a short stroke block with seven main bearings and went racing as the Torino. Of course that was in the early seventies, and only three liters, but, hey, not every component of a traditional rod has to be period. Else there would be no digital dashes, refrigeration, amplified woofers and alternators seen.

 

I know this is the USA, but take note of what the Australians did with a small inline six called the Holden gray engine. A shrunken Stovebolt begun in Detroit, those critters got double cam heads that looked and ran like Aston Martins. They were present throughout the fifties. I cannot figure out how to attach a pic, but Google the name "Waggott" and see what I mean.

 

Seventy horsepower from 134 cubes does not seem to require a 2 inch intake valve to me. I think the Crosley with 45 cubes could have that kind of horsepower coaxed out of it if you turned its five main bottom end fast enough. The Italian tuners with their DOHC heads (Bandini or Stanguellini) certainly did this with them.

 

One curiosity to comment on is that the Caddy 331 and FirePower, the A block and the Stude all used the same sort of lugs on the block for motor mounts pads, probably even the same stamping that hung out horizontally to sit on the rubber puck. Made for easy swapping, assuming the pans were deep sump at the rear. Similar to having standardized the fuel pump mounting pad and gasket for the whole industry.

 

Another word on the rambler V8. There was a fellow that built a 327 rambler here in the early sixties, that showed it's rear bumper to a number of 406 fords and 409 chevies on the local dirt track in El Paso, Texas . That is until the unit body took a few too many hits and gave it up.

 

Calling the Edward Turner designed (former chief engine designer for Triumph motorcycles) Majestic Major V8 hemi (and the diminutive SP250 hemi for that matter) a stouter version of the Red Ram 270 is not only a stretch but it is totally untrue. It is not a version nor a variation of the Red Ram 270. It has zero Chrysler parts. The only thing the two have in common is the they are both pushrod hemis....

This from Wikipedia:

Shortly after being appointed Managing Director (Chief Executive) of BSA's Automotive Division in 1956, Edward Turner was asked to design a saloon car powered by a V8 engine.<sup id="cite_ref-Clew82_2-0" class="reference">[2]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-Long19_3-0" class="reference">[3]</sup> Turner and his design engineer Jack Wickes began considering the initial concept of their new engine by examining the manual and spare parts list of a Cadillac V8 engine.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference">[note 1]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-Clew82_2-1" class="reference">[2]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-Long1920_5-0" class="reference">[4]</sup> Using a pushrod overhead valve system kept down design, development and production costs and allowed Turner to base the design of the cylinder head on those he developed for Triumph motorcycles<sup id="cite_ref-Clew82_2-2" class="reference">[2]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-Long2022_6-0" class="reference">[5]</sup> including the use of hemispherical combustion chambers.<sup id="cite_ref-Long87_7-0" class="reference">[6]</sup> Adapting the Triumph head design for use in a saloon car engine required much work in reducing friction and improving timing.<sup id="cite_ref-Long22_8-0" class="reference">[7]</sup> Much of the development of the prototype engine was carried out by Dr. J. N. H. Tait.<sup id="cite_ref-Long2223_9-0" class="reference">[8]</sup>

 

GM never sued Studebaker. They helped them design the Stude V8.

Let me explain. When the Stude V8 was introduced some people noticed a resemblance to the Cadillac. Studebaker replied that they were completely different, different bore and stroke, different size, gear driven cam instead of chain, solid lifter cam instead of hydraulics, many detail differences that proved they had nothing in common except a superficial appearance.

Later, Stude engineers admitted they took a long look at the Cadillac before sitting down at the drawing board. They read some Society of Automotive Engineers papers written by Cadillac's designers and even consulted with them in person, on certain knotty details of design.

So, the Stude was not a direct copy but was certainly influenced by Cadillac.

Once the 1949 Cadillac was in the showrooms, the cat was out of the bag. All the details were out there for anyone to see. The designers published papers with all the details of their thinking, what problems they encountered and how they solved them. This was all in the public domain a few months after the cars introduction.

There was no way to patent the idea of a V8 engine, or overhead valves, hydraulic lifters, or any other feature. They had all been common knowledge for years. The only thing new about the engine was the way it combined existing ideas.

 

Not mentioned here yet were the 383 Mercury & 430 Lincolns. I don't think they ever made much of a splash but I think there was some 430 hot rods. An Air Force buddy & I got a 383 Merc & cleaned it up, bored it .060 and put a Crane cam in it. I think, not sure, but a .060 over with a 430 crank yielded 454 cu.in. We was going to put the engine in a '38 Opel we found in a junk yard. We paid for it but never did get it. Both of us got out of the AF & went our seperate ways. I wound up with the motor but somebody stole the heads. I had the motor for years & finally sold it for $300.

 

No doubt. I had a stock 60 caddy ragtop and it would really light up the tires if you mashed it.

 

Detroit freely copied each others designs, and always have. This goes back to Ford and the Selden patent. Once Henry broke the power of that, the car makers rarely patented any innovations or even basic designs. Even when a genuine innovation came along, if it was patented by it's designer, Detroit would generally wait until the patent expired before adopting it. Also little known by the general public was the fact that the manufacturers purchased parts/assemblies from each other; Studebaker (and later AMC) and IH bought a lot of parts from Ford, GM, or Chrysler and Ford and GM have used each others transmissions in some models.

 

One cool OHV motor.... Cadillac V12/16 from 1930-34. To me it was one of the best looking motors they ever built... just didn't have any guts to it! They actually replaced it with a flathead V12/16 .....

 

Beautiful Edmunds valve covers